


deep sea dive

by blackkat



Series: MerMay Drabbles [3]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Deep Sea Merpeople, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24073228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: When their ship goes down in a deep sea trench, Rex doesn't expect much beyond a long, treacherous trek back to the borders of the kingdom. He most certainly doesn't expect to get rescued by four Jedi who might as well be myths.
Relationships: Jon Antilles & Nico Diath & Fay & Knol Ven'nari, Jon Antilles/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: MerMay Drabbles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727092
Comments: 12
Kudos: 497





	deep sea dive

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: SW MerMay thoughts - Jon and the other nomadic Jedi are deep water mers, working well beyond the borders of "civilized" waters. The GAR usually aren't called out that far, and the men (the 501st? the 212th?) aren't expecting Jedi...

“Where the hell are we?” Rex asks, and it spreads too far, makes a curl of unease wash down his spine as he surveys the empty darkness between the canyon walls. The water here is almost black, strangely warm against skin and scales, and Rex is almost certain that he’s never been anywhere this deep before.

“Deep sea trench, a hundred kilometers from the border of the closest kingdom,” Cody says grimly, checking the holoscreen. The orange-gold of his tail is almost obscene in the darkness, and Rex thinks uncomfortably just what a target it makes him down here. “Of all the places for our cruiser to go down.”

Rex winces. “At least the generals weren’t on board,” he says, though he kind of wishes they had been, if only so they’d be around now. But it’s better that they're not; Grievous wouldn’t have given up so easily after shooting them down if he’d thought the Jedi were nearby. Clones he’ll write off as not worth the effort. Jedi would have been an invitation to try harder.

Cody doesn’t look much comforted by this. “Comms aren’t working, and no Jedi come down this deep,” he says flatly. “We’re going to have to swim back to the border.”

That was clear the minute they started going down. Rex winces, looking up the slow incline of the canyon, and tries to think how many creatures out here would be more than happy to make a meal out of a few squads of mers. Too many, he’s sure.

“We’re going to need a hell of a lot more lights,” he says.

Cody's helmet is one of the few that has a nose-plate, the polished metal almost coppery-gold like the rest of the 212th. It makes it hard to see his features in the gloom, but Rex watches his eyes trace the slope, the towering walls. There's nothing above them but stone and water, and they were made for fighting, for the oceans, grown in legions from the tooth of one of the seas’ greatest warriors. But this—

Rex doesn’t like being this deep.

“Yeah. At _least_ ,” Cody says, grim, and turns away, a powerful flick of his tail sending him arrowing back towards the main part of the crash.

Rex stays where he is, though. He watches the darkness for some glimmer of light, some hint at the surface world above, and can't see any. They might as well have fallen into the underworld for all he can make out.

In the darkness, there's a flicker of light. One small spot of it high up on the trench’s walls, and for a moment Rex's heart skips, and he feels a surge of hope—

Vast, luminescent eyes open, and a beast that’s bigger than any whale surges out, the glow from its scales leaving a streak of eerie light. Instantly, Rex shouts a warning, grabbing for his trident, and hears the companies come alive behind him, mers snatching up weapons and falling in all at once.

The beast crashes down on them, and Rex suspects he has a very good idea why Grievous let them crash instead of trying to finish them off.

They hole up to sleep in shallow recesses in the cavern walls, and even after swimming for hours there's no change in the scenery, no break in the trench. Following the sea floor keeps them away from the Separatist ships that patrol the upper waters here, but—if he were alone, or just with Torrent, Rex might be tempted to swim up and just keep going until he hit the surface.

He’s not alone, though. The rest of the 501st and the 212th is with him, returning from deployment at the kingdom’s borders, and they have wounded. There's no way they can all brave the treacherous currents this far out, let alone the Seps, and Rex knows that.

“Everyone holding steady?” he asks Kix quietly, settling on a rock by the little medical area Kix and Shank have set up. There are wounded brothers scattered over the sand, in various stages of healing, but he can't see any dead. Shank is asleep on a jut of stone higher up on the wall, too, long tail drifting in the current, and Rex knows he wouldn’t have passed out unless he’d done everything he could.

“So far.” Kix sounds tired, but he gives Rex a small smile, settling next to him. Rex curls his tail around Kix's, sapphire blue against Kix's darker scales, and Kix huffs, sinking against his side. “Boil’s coming around, and Dogma's not going to have to lose the hand. I can't do much without real medical facilities, though.”

“Do what you can,” Rex says, because that’s all any of them can do right now. “You saw that Cody—”

“Got his shoulder dislocated? Yeah. He’ll be all right in a few hours, once the swelling goes down.” Kix glances up, eyes seeking the top of the canyon even if Rex knows there's nothing to see, and then says, “I'm starting to figure out why mers don’t come to the Outer Trenches.”

“Only starting?” Rex asks dryly, but he pulls his helmet off, setting it in his lap. “Hopefully the generals will send out patrols when they can't raise us, maybe meet us halfway back to the new border. This area used to be part of the kingdoms, but I can see why no one complained too much when they split off.”

“Me too,” Kix mutters, and rubs his hands over his face. “Everything down here wants to eat us.”

That’s been the impression Rex has been getting, too. He sighs, and—

Movement. Just a flicker of it, bare and quick out of the corner of his eye.

There's no time for anything but instinct. With one hard shove, Rex throws Kix back towards the wounded troopers, surges up, and _grabs_. The giant eel is too big, moving too fast to stop, though, and Rex is thrown back, trying desperately to hold on to the snapping jaws just centimeters from his face. Behind him, Kix shouts to rouse the camp, but Rex is already almost too far away to hear it, and he doesn’t have his trident, only has his belt knives that won't even pierce the eel’s hide.

Alone in the dark, practically unarmed, with predators all around him. On the list of ways Rex wants to die, that’s at the very bottom of the list.

The eel hisses, grinding metal in Rex's ears, and twists. Rex has half a second to brace before his back hits stone, the impact hard enough to knock the breath right out of him, skin tearing. His hold slips, and the eel jerks loose with one hard wrench. It rears up in front of him, and Rex flips his tail, hurls himself to the side just in time. The creature slams face-first into the stone instead of him, then recoils and rises, and Rex tries to dive but there's stone on every side of him, a jut of rock hemming him in, and—

Out in the darkness, there's a flash of light.

“Antilles!” a voice shouts, and a fractured heartbeat later something viciously quick and as black pitch hits the eel in the side of the head, hurling it away from Rex with one vicious blow. Rex almost falters, but before he can even turn there’s another figure plunging past, pale tail a flash of brightness in the gloom, teeth _sharp_. He feels a flicker of impossible heat, like he just swam over a deep-sea vent, and then she’s gone, hurling herself after the dark mer with a laugh that makes the hair stand up on the back of Rex's neck.

“ _What_ ,” Rex manages, catching himself on the stone, and has to suck in a sharp breath as pain flares along his back. He hisses, but can't quite manage to look away from the pale spot of the other mers driving the eel back.

“Don’t mind them,” a man’s voice says, faintly annoyed, and a glowing arm slides over the ledge of rock beside Rex. He twitches back hard, grabbing for his knife, but before he can draw it the octopus mer is pulling himself up, strange, translucent, bioluminescent arms holding him securely to the stone. Except for the strange look of his lower half, he could be any of the council members Rex has seen, face stern and dignified, eyes wise but watchful.

“Them?” Rex asks after a moment, straightening warily.

“Our companions,” another voice says, and Rex jerks around, only to come face to face with a fourth mer, her golden-brown hair drifting in the current around them. Her ears come to a sharp point, and there are bits of blue tattooed on her cheek, framing one eye. What catches Rex's eye, though, is her tail, longer than any he’s seen before. It’s a vast curl of translucent skin and bright gold within, with swirling fins like a tattered fringe.

Siphonophore, Rex thinks, and has to swallow. A native of the deepest parts of the sea, and functionally immortal. He’s _definitely_ never seen a mer like this before.

Before he can say anything, though, the woman frowns, curling closer, her tail a barrier between Rex and the open ocean. “Nico,” she says. “Keep an eye on things. He’s hurt.”

Rex winces, but offers, “It’s not that bad, I can—”

Nico detaches himself from the stone, drifting out into the trench with a wary eye on the shadows. “This far down, blood is an invitation for the nastier inhabitants,” he says. “Let Fay help you.”

Fay smiles at him, small and quick, and raises her hands. In her palms, there's a flicker of white glow, a touch of power. Rex freezes, staring at her, because that’s—

“You're a _Jedi_?” he demands.

Fay snorts. “All four of us, yes,” she says dryly, and tugs Rex forward, brushing a hand over the torn skin of his back. Rex twitches, but there isn't even any pain, just the strange feeling of flesh knitting itself back together in a rush. He hisses out a breath between his teeth, more unsettled than hurting, and Fay makes a soothing sound.

Light kindles, a ball of brilliance above Nico's palm, and he lifts it. In the wash of light, twin shapes come clear, plummeting down towards them. Rex tenses, catching a glimpse of dark scales, spines, _claws_ —

The dark mer who saved him pulls up next to Nico, feathery fins flaring around him like a dark cloak, and glances at Rex. “All right?” he asks quietly.

Rex can't quite pull his gaze from pale eyes, the heavily scarred torso, the long tail that’s so dark it merges perfectly with the shadows. Oil-slick black scales run up the man’s arms, over his shoulders and his cheekbones, and there are spines down his forearms and the sides of his tail. “Fine,” he manages. “Thanks to you.”

There's a loud snort from the other mer, and she shoves the dark mer out of the way with a flick of her tail, the pink-white scales bright. The water around her is _hot_ , almost bewilderingly so, and her hair is a tangle of fire-red and golden-brown around her shoulders, her features more animalistic than any mer Rex has met before. “Antilles always likes to stick his nose in other people’s business,” she says, fondly mocking, and the dark mer rolls his eyes.

“You're lucky Jon felt the commotion,” Fay says, pulling away, and her meters of shining tail shift, no longer hemming Rex in. “Our barriers are usually too thick for that sort of thing.”

“The Force wanted us to save him,” Jon says, and looks away. “Knol—”

“I feel it, too,” the mer says, frowning. She folds her arms over her chest, tilting her head, and then says, “A lure?”

Nico hums. “If we forge one together, it should last the night,” he agrees. “When you get back to the cave, strengthen the wards. We’ll have to keep the creatures well away from the troopers.”

“Lure?” Rex repeats, alarmed. The Separatist armies sometimes use lures—captured mers, strung up and bleeding, carried in front of their enchanted stone armies.

Before he can even register the flare of panic, though, there's a ripple of black scales, and Jon slips closer, takes his arm in gentle fingers. “A magical construct, to draw the beasts in the trench away from your troops,” he says, and Rex's heartbeat slows under the steady, unwavering truth in his eyes. Reassurance, edged with a promise, and Rex breathes out and nods.

“I need to gather some things,” Fay says, and her smile is warmer now, amused as she watches them. “Jon, make sure he rests.”

“All right.” Jon nods to her, then to Nico and Knol, and glances at Rex again. “I need to be touching you to get you through the wards.”

“That’s fine,” Rex says, and looks back, down the canyon. “My men—”

“When morning comes, we’ll bring you back to them,” Jon says quietly. “And we’ll see you back to the border of the kingdoms.”

Four Jedi and their magic. Four Jedi who are clearly familiar with the trenches and willing to help. The relief almost makes Rex dizzy, and he swallows and nods.

“Thank you,” he says roughly.

Jon's smile is small and crooked. “It’s the least we can do,” he says, then slides closer. The brush of all those feathery fins against Rex's makes him suck in a breath, startled, as does the curl of an arm around his waist, careful of the spines. There’s no chance to marshal himself, either; in an instant Jon is rising, too fast for a normal mer, and the water blurs around them as he surges up the walls of the trench, then twists. Rex grits his teeth as they plunge towards solid stone, braces for the hit—

And they pass through a narrow crack that glows blue, straight into warm air.

Rex yelps, even as Jon's grip tightens. Their fall slows, and Rex can feel the shift, scales and fins to human limbs. Manages to grab for his own transformation, only a second too slow, and he hits the ground on his knees, trying to orient himself at the sudden shift to breathing air.

Jon crouches beside him, one hand on his back, and his hair is dark and wet and tangled around his face, a hint of his bright-dark scales still marked into the skin across his temples and the line of his jaw. Rex can only just see them through his hair. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “I forgot that most people don’t shift as fast as Jedi.”

“I've been keeping up with a Jedi for years now,” Rex says wryly. “I can manage.” He looks around the small cave, taking in the shimmer of various shades of Jedi magic, and breathes in, letting his lungs adjust. There are marks of occupation, but—likely not long-term, he thinks. This is a glorified camp more than anything, which makes the fact that the four of them were around to save his tail even more fortunate. “I—thank you for saving me.”

“You would have gotten it eventually,” Jon says, quietly certain, and rises to his feet. Taking a handful of steps, he picks up a pair of pants from a chest and pulls them on, unselfconscious, and then tosses another pair to Rex.

Rex catches them, rising to his feet, and tries not to let himself flush at the easy praise. He doesn’t _feel_ like he would have had it, but—well. Jango was a hunter, and that carried over to his clones, so Rex might have managed to pull something dumb off eventually. “Still,” he says determinedly. “Thank you. I'm Captain Rex, of the 501st. I owe you my life.”

Something like alarm flickers over Jon's face, and he raises his hands, stepping back. “No debts,” he says, almost sharp. “I won't—I can't carry that.”

Most mers wouldn’t hesitate to claim a favor from a highly-ranked captain in the army, even Jedi. Rex hesitates, a little surprised, and then says, “All right. My gratitude stands, though.”

“Save it for someone else,” Jon says, but not unkindly, and turns away. Green magic sparks, curling around the room, and it brings lights up, more warmth, a strange sense of peace. Rex's breath knots in his throat, because he hasn’t felt this kind of ease in _months_ , and it feels like someone just stripped every last bit of tension right out of his spine.

“Damn,” he says, a little ragged, and rises as well.

Jon doesn’t look at him, but Rex thinks he sees a flicker of relief cross his face. “Fay taught me,” he says, and then approaches a hanging of dark cloth, pulling it aside to reveal a small room. There's a mattress, a thick blanket, glowing stones set into the walls, and Rex has to swallow at the sight of it.

Given the dusting of oil-slick scales on the sand, he’s willing to bet this is Jon's personal room, and—well. He’s an attractive, intriguing man, and Rex hasn’t slept with anyone in a long time. Just the idea of sharing a bed with Jon, however unlikely it actually is, makes something curl hot and secret in his gut.

“Fay said you should rest,” Jon says, and holds the hanging back for Rex to enter. He hesitates for a moment, then glances up, meeting Rex's eyes. “I’ll keep watch here.”

Something in Rex's chest eases. There’s always a brother on watch, regardless of where they are, and Rex sometimes thinks he won't ever be able to sleep without it. Knowing that Jon _knows_ that, that he’s willing to do the same, is a relief Rex hadn’t expected.

“Thanks,” he says roughly, and steps down into the room. Pinning the hanging back, Jon takes a seat on the steps, back against the stone of the doorframe, and looks away as Rex settles on the edge of the bed.

He can't sleep. There's still adrenaline running through his veins, still a burning edge of curiosity in his mind. Instead, he watches Jon, the line of his scarred shoulders, the fall of his hair, and—wonders.

“Where did you even come from?” he asks, unable to help himself.

Jon glances at him, pale eyes curious, but doesn’t otherwise react. “We stick to the Outer Trenches,” he says. “All four of us. They need Jedi, now that the Separatists have claimed them.”

Rex hadn’t known there were _any_ Jedi that made their homes in the deep-sea trenches, but he breathes out a sound of amusement and says, “That made it my lucky day, I guess.”

Jon's mouth curls, just faintly. “The Force told me you were in trouble,” he says. “Whatever’s coming, you play a part in it. I want to find out what.”

Rex hesitates, not sure how to feel about that. For a moment, he wavers, before he finally says, “I'm just a clone.”

“You're a clone,” Jon says, and holds his gaze. “There's no _just_.”

The urge to look away is at war with the urge to grab him, drag him in and see if his mouth tastes just as hot and dark as Rex imagines it does. He has to gather himself for a long moment before he finally says, “What happens next?”

“Next?” Jon raises a brow, just faintly. “Next we get you and your men back to the kingdoms. And then I see if I should stay.” He grimaces, ducking his head, and runs a hand through his wet hair. “I don’t…go back often. Or ever.”

“I’ll have to show you the sights, then,” Rex says, only a little dry. “You know I already have a general, right?”

“I don’t want to be your general,” Jon counters, soft. Doesn’t add anything, but—

Rex's breath still catches, and he looks at Jon settled in the doorway, between Rex and any dangers even though it’s supposed to be the other way around. Breathes, and _wants_ , and just for a minute, he allows himself to feel it.


End file.
